2010 NFL Draft: The Lions in Winter, Live from Ford Field

It took me longer than I meant to to get my draft plans figured out, but it’s now settled:  I’ll be attending the creatively-named Draft Night Event at Ford Field.  I’ll be seeing the sights and talking to people beforehand, and recording video live from the event.  I’ll be trying to upload them and link to them as the night goes on.  Hit me up on Twitter if you’re there—and if you aren’t camera shy, you might even get to be “famous”!

And by "famous", I mean you will get to be on the Internet.  Which like, you probably already are.  But you know, more on the Internet.

Also, if my laptop isn’t confiscated and the WiFi holds up, I’ll be part of the Mlive.com NFL Draft Live Blog, along with Phil, Killer, Schottey, and the rest of the gang.  I’ll be posting up the video links there, too, so if you’re following along, you won’t miss out.  Failing that, I will of course be Tweeting the everlovin’ love out of it @lionsinwinter.

The fourth round of my quasi-mock will be up before the afternoon is out, but I’m not going to do the seventh.  Besides being a massive effort, with so many selections and too many players to scout, there’s nearly zero chance that the Lions stand pat throughout the fifth and six rounds while they have four seventh-rounders burning a hole in their pocket.  I anticipate that those picks will be used as trade lubricant, and the draft board will start changing rapidly come Saturday.

I love making the pilgrimage to the stadium, there's really nothing like it.  Connecting with the fans, hearing the cheers, feeling the excitement, spotting jersey fails, and spotting jersey wins—like the old guy in an authenic Lem Barney throwback I saw last year.  Paying like $13 for a Labatt and a Kowalski, soaking in the tepid rays of the Detroit sun, even indoors . . . it’s awesome.  I can’t wait to capture the moment when they draft Ndamukong Suh on video—and I can’t wait to share it all with you!

Technorati Tags: nfl,detroit lions,nfl draft,ndamukong suh,live blog

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The Lions in Winter is a Blog of Note!

Nearly Blog of Note I've ever viewed's most recent entry has been a screencap of their browser, viewing blogsofnote.blogspot.com, with some sort of message like,

Whoa!  I'm a blog of note!

Well, the time has finally come, and I would be remiss if I didn't do my duty.

WHOA!  I’M A BLOG OF NOTE!

Seriously, it's a really cool honor; huge ups to Brett Wiltshire, who hooked me up.  More thanks to the whole Blogger team.  They were there for me when I had a lot to say, and needed a way to say it.  Their free, but excellent, publishing platform has grown right with my blog, enabling me to do everything I’ve envisioned.  With the Blogger platform, I’m able to focus on the writing, the art, and the look and feel—without relentlessly slaving over the nitty gritty, or paying through the nose for enterprise-class hosting.

For folks walking in the door, I invite you to check out the “About” page (courtesy of Blogger Pages!), and you’ll know exactly what I’m this blog is all about.  For returning visitors, check out Blogs of Note regularly and be amazed at what people are doing out there.

Technorati Tags: the lions in winter,blogging,writing,blogspot,blogs of note

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The Lions in Winter: New Look, Same Great Taste

For those checking out the site on Lynx, I've just updated the look and feel of the site. Over the past year or so, I'd been wrestling with the layout. It looked like what I pictured in my head, but did so at the expense of load time, readability, and usability.

The new layout fixes a lot of these issues. It also gives the important part--the text--a lot more elbow room, puts the most useful site tools in more prominent positions, and more organically integrates the ads into the page. Perhaps most importantly, the new layout looks approximately 14.7 quadrillion times better on mobile browsers.

Please note: the new layout isn't done, or perfect. I'm still tweaking some of the color/layout graphic stuff, especially as regards the sidebars and widgets. I've been checking things in Opera, Chrome, Safari, and IE8, on both Windows and Mac where possible. If things are broken for you, please let me know right away via email or Twitter (or, of course, just comment on this post).

In the meantime, I hope the new look makes the site load much more quickly, read much more cleanly, and be a generally more awesome place to hang out and talk Lions football.

EDITED TO ADD: the new template was sourced from Our Blog Templates, and though I've customized it quite a bit, I started with the Simple N’ Sweet template. 

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TLIW Axe Hair ACTION Challenge: The Contest

Everyone who’s been reading, or following me on Twitter, knows I’ve been teaming up with AXE to give  away AXE Hair Action Challenge prize packages: a quality leather shaving bag full of AXE Hair products, and a Flip digital video camera.

As we approach the final challenge over at AXE’s site, I’m offering up one more of my own:

Tell me about a time when you were proud to be a Lions fan.

When was the last time you held your head up high?  Wore your Lions gear with pride?  Saw someone walking down the street wearing Lions gear and gave them a nod, or said “nice [jacket|hat|shirt]”?  When was the last time you shouted and high-fived somebody over something the Lions did?

What’s your favorite memory of being a proud Lions fan?  A big win?  A memorable Thanksgiving?  A moment shared with your family?  Attending your first game in-person?

I want you to write about this time, this moment, this memory, and tell me about it.  To enter, email me with the subject line “AXE Hair writing contest”, and in the body of the email include the full text of the story.  Also include how you’d like me to announce your name, e.g. “Person” from “Place”, or your commenting handle.  My address is up there in the “The Flamekeeper” widget at the top of the sidebar. 

The winner will receive an AXE prize package—and their story published for the world to see here on The Lions in Winter.

Technorati Tags: detroit lions,matthew stafford,axe hair action challenge,writing,blogging,contest

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Behind the Scenes: Going Meta

When watching Matthew Stafford's AXE Hair Action Challenge videos, I suspected the existence of an outtake reel—a reel which, if it existed, the world deserved to see.  I was glad to discover I my suspicions were well-founded, and the good people at AXE fulfilled their duty to the global populace.

I like blogging the way I blog: solo instead of team, independent instead of part of a network, as a hobby instead of full-time.  There’s a purity of purpose, and of content, that I think is rare and special.  There is, however, a downside: any time not spent writing is time I'm not writing.  Answering email is not writing. Tweeting is not writing.  Reading other blogs, and commenting on them, are not writing.  Finally, working on my site’s appearance is most definitely not writing.

Most of those things still connect with you all, still involve share my thoughts, and are satisfying to me and to you.  However, working on the site itself is isolated, solitary work that bears no fruit until the work is done.  Meanwhile, TLIW withers on the vine while everyone patiently waits for me to, you know, write.

So.

The current layout is far from perfect.  It roughly matches the vision in my head, but does so at the expense of being excruciatingly slow to load, kind of glitchy, and not particularly professional.  According to Google Analytics, an embarrassingly high percentage of people come here, go “BLEH”, and leave without reading or clicking on anything.

I'm trying to find a balance between "clean" and "my vision".  Fortunately, my vision is pretty clean, so it's just a matter of execution.  I'm trying to maintain the overall impression of the site, but make it much quicker and user-friendly.  If you want to track the evolution of the changes, poke your head in at http://tliwindraft.blogspot.com.  BE FOREWARNED:

• Nothing works.
• Nothing looks good.
• Nothing is decided for sure.
• Yes, I know.

That having been said . . . have at it!  Meanwhile, I'm going to be writing.

Technorati Tags: detroit lions,nfl,matthew stafford,axe,axe hair action challenge,blogging,blog

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Goodbye: The Church of Schwartz

Though it's been scarcely a year since I began writing here, it seems like it's been much longer.  I find myself looking back through the archives more and more often, to remind myself of “how I did it last time”, or to check up on how my old predictions came out.

As exciting as it is to begin drawing from my blog’s ‘history’, this is still a very young site.  For the most part, the friends, readers, and commenters who’ve gathered here have stayed—if for no other reason than they just got here.  The Lions in Winter simply hasn’t been around long enough for the natural cycle of an Internet community to make a complete trip around; very few regular commenters have come, stayed, grown close, grown distant, and then left.

However, while TLIW hasn’t been around that long, the Lions blogosphere has . . and today, we say goodbye to The Church Of Schwartz.  As you can see, hackers have eviscerated the site—and its archives.  The authors, Reverend Spielman and Deacon Blades Boyd, have elected not to try to recreate from scratch what they’d spent the last year building.

The email from the good Reverend to the members of The Lions Congregation, the CoS’s weekly Lions writer roundtable, saddened and depressed me.  The number of truly dedicated Lions fans is relatively small; that of the excellent, frequently-updated Lions blogs even smaller.

We won't be losing Rev or the Deacon as fans, of course—and the Reverend assures me that they’ll continue to read and comment on Lions blogs and forums as they always have—but now, there’s one less place on the Internet that Lions fans can go for thoughtful, well-presented analysis and discussion, and for that we’re all worse off.

Reverend, Deacon, if you’re reading this, I’m pouring two mugs of hot, hard cider, and keeping two seats by the blue bonfire open for you.  You’re welcome to sit and drink here any time.

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coming UP For Air

. . . *gasp* HieverybodyI’mnotdeadI’mstillworkingontheDTbreakdown don’tworryyou’llhaveitsoonandit’lltotallybeworththewaitokaybackintothefray *plunge*

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Giving Thanks

I hope you all had as wonderful of a holiday weekend as I did.  Spending lots of do-nothing time with friends and family is a great way to relax, recharge, and reinvigorate yourself.  I also went to my official 10-year high school reunion--nothing screams “high school” like having two reunions—and I’m still kind of grooving off of the whole reconnection vibe.

In that spirit, I'm going to virtually reconnect with a lot of the folks who've been there for me throughout the eleven months I've been writing. In absolutely no particular order . . .

• Steve from Detroit Lions Weblog was an early inspiration. When I was considering starting TLIW, I knew absolutely nothing about the Lions blogosphere.  I spent a couple of weeks looking around to see what blogs were out there already, what was being written, and what was being read.  I was taken by Steve's ability to simply write about the Lions, holding nothing back in either emotion or vocabulary.  Reading him express himself completely, and then let those words stand alone, convinced me that what I wanted to do could be done.
• Reverend Spielman over at the Church of Schwartz has put together what just might be the best regular feature of the Lions blogosphere: the Lions Congregation.  This roundtable of Lions bloggers, discussing three new Reverend-composed questions, has sussed out the gamut of reasonable opinions on almost every Lions topic.  Frankly, it’s a must-read for anyone who likes intelligent Lions analysis.  Beyond the Congregation, the Rev and his partner, Deacon Blades Boyd, do some very sharp analysis of their own.  They also hail from the Great White North, and therefore connect a lot of international readers with the greater Lions community.
• Phil Zaroo over at Mlive has been an incredible boon to me, and the rest of the Lions blogosphere.  Phil reads just about every Lions blog there is, and regularly links the best of all of them (and me) in his Highlight Reel blog, which has provided me with the lion’s share (ha ha) of my exposure and traffic.  However, Phil's much more than a linking machine.  He writes with his own voice, both frequently and well.
• Kevin Seifert at ESPN.com is technically an “NFC North” blogger.  However, he not only has the regional knowledge of being a Vikings beat for years, has the sources and resources of the Worldwide Leader at his fingertips, he takes the time to do a genuinely awesome job with his Lions analysis.  He also did me the amazing favor of writing about, and linking to, a TLIW post.
• David M of NFL Draft Blogger has all the college pigskin knowledge I lack, and he puts that to good work doing all the draft prep that I, at best, put off until February.  He’s also a Lions fan, and both reads and comments here from time to time.  Frequently, we pick each other’s brain over IM, and the result is better stuff for all you folks.
• Sean Yuille at the Pride of Detroit does an amazing job breaking down all the latest news, reports, and rumors about the Lions.  He actually got a hold of the complete style sheet for the new Lions fonts, logo, and uniform weeks before anyone else had it.  In my early days, I tried to keep pace with him on that stuff--it only took a couple of weeks before I realized I was just parroting him and knocked it off.  More than that, though, I admire the way Sean has built a massive community; plenty of people write their own mini-blogs and one-shot posts under the umbrella of PoD.
• I would be beyond remiss if I didn't also mention DrewsLions, a regular poster at PoD, and an excellent commenter here.  Drew writes from the heart, much as I do, and we’ve frequently admired each other’s work.  This next bit has nothing to do with his writing or the Lions, but Drew has recently been through a profound personal struggle; I can only hope that if I were in the same situation, I’d have half of the resilience and strength of spirit he’s shown.
• No rundown of awesome dudes in the Lions blogosphere could be without Greg Eno, and his partner in knee-jerking, Big Al of the Wayne Fontes Experience.  Their weekly Blog Talk Radio show/podcast, “The Knee Jerks”, is a whole lot of good talk, good interviews, and just plain good stuff on all the Detroit pro teams.  Both Greg and Big Al are well-spoken on air, comfortable with each other, and clearly have a good time while they’re doing it.  Greg’s a professional writer who’s started and maintained several outstanding blogs—notably, Out of Bounds, and enotes (non-sports).  Big Al is a very smart, very funny guy who is unafraid to drop Star Trek, Life is Hell, Invader Zim, or The Three Stooges screenshots into his work—sometimes, all in the same post!  His weekly Facepalm Awards are not to be missed; here’s a prime example.  Big Al’s gotten a lot bigger lately with his incredibly invasive, but incredibly successful back surgery--here’s to that!
• Big Al's stuff has been so smart, so funny, so consistently, that he's been asked to contributed to Mlive.com's It’s Just Sports.  Patrick Hayes and company over there consistently deliver the daily news about Michigan (and national) sports with a sly grin and a barbed stinger.  They also did me the honor of a feature article and interview a little while ago, and I’m incredibly thankful for that.
• Speaking of smart and funny, Neil over at Armchair Linebacker is in a class all by himself.  Any regular TLIW readers have both seen me highlight his work, and seen him comment here, many times.  What Neil does is something I’m consistently astounded by: with wit, style, and sparkling prose he captures the profound depression and unstoppable optimism that comes with being a Lions fan.  We’ve often noted that our work seems like two sides of the same coin: I soar through my blue-sky optimism on patched and tattered wings, while he trudges through the marshes of the river Styx, protecting his blue-flamed candle from the muck and the mire.
• Lastly, and very far from leastly, is DF79's Roar of the Lions.  He started the way I did: with nothing but will a Blogspot account.  However, he recently joined forces with Fanball to present the same great material in some very shiny new digs.  He’s knowledgeable and analytical—yet, he writes with personality and passion, much as I do.  As a fellow young father of multiple kids, he and I both experienced the great joys of mixing family and fandom.  DF79 and I share a love of coffee, and we’ve even been lucky enough to share Lions talk over lattes at our mutual favorite establishment.  He and his have also experienced a recent loss; I hope this time of reconnection helps his family recover.

I really could keep going for days; there are many folks (be they Lions-, sports-, or non-sports) that have inspired me from afar, checked out my writing, linked to my writing, collaborated with me, or otherwise deserve mention; there’s too many to list them all.  I just wanted to take this time to make sure that everyone reading knows how much this site’s been lifted up by all my fellow Lions bloggers—most of whom have been plowing this frozen ground for far longer than I have.  Infinite thanks to them, and to you.

Be well, everyone, and may peace be with you and yours throughout this holiday season.

--Ty

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the lions congregation: WEEk TEN

It’s time once again for the weekly worship at the Church of Schwartz!  The men of the Lions Congregation--the best Lions bloggers on the Internet, plus me--gathered to moot the issues of the week:

• If Ernie Sims is ready to play in the next few weeks, where do you put him?
• Jeff Backus hasn’t been horrific the last week or two. Is there any way he’s back with the Lions next season?
• Is there any way possible the Lions beat the Vikings this week?

So please, take time out to read the works of the Schwartz-fearing men of the Internet!

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interview: it’s just sports

It’s Just Sports is an Mlive.com blog that casts a languorous, snarky eye on the sublime and the ridiculous in the world of sports.  If you haven’t been keeping tabs on it, I highly recommend you do.  Patrick Hayes, Pardeep Toor, and a cast of other cool cats have spent the last year gathering (and skewering) the latest sports news, naming the ”best worst” Detroit athletes, keeping tabs on ridiculous player Tweets, and getting to know some of the many excellent sports bloggers that call this wooded mitten home.

Apparently, they ran out of excellent sports bloggers, because earlier this week Patrick asked me some seriously excellent questions, and I did my best to answer them.  It’s my first interview of any kind, and part of a series which has included some of the very best local sports blogs around.  I’m thrilled, honored, and pleased that Patrick took the time to ask me some questions and publish the answers—I hope you’ll take the time to go read them!

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the new digs

UPDATE: Comments are now fixed, as are a couple of other things.  As always, you can still email me at thelionsinwinter@gmail.com.

I’ll keep this short and sweet: please, let me know what you think.  Colors?  Graphics?  Fonts (still messing with this)?  Please, I’d love to hear your impressions of things so far; just comment on this post.

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